Nasuni Adds Multi-site Access to its Data Continuity Service

Posted on October 31, 2011 By Stuart Johnston

Enterprise storage company Nasuni Thursday introduced a multi-site access capability for its Data Continuity Services, which lets organizations with multiple workplaces simultaneously collaborate on a single set of shared data.

The new capability, which is available this week to all Nasuni Data Continuity Services subscribers, creates a controller architecture that enables multiple storage controllers to have "live access" to the same volume of file-level snapshots, a company statement said.

To take advantage of the new multi-site capability, customers must either have Nasuni's virtual appliance or one of Nasuni's new hardware appliances installed at each site.

By using thin provisioning, the local footprint of the shared data is smaller than the whole data file being shared, Nasuni's statement said.

The service takes an encrypted snapshot of the file system often enabling users to roll back to an earlier version of a file, a directory, or an entire file system, at will.

Additionally, the service saves the most frequently used files locally so they are the most quickly accessible.

Among the features that the new multi-site facility provides is the capability to quickly distribute a read-only copy of the data to remote offices and back offices. The new service also feeds data that has been changed at a remote location back to headquarters "without the need for expensive, array-based point-to-point replication solutions or WAN acceleration," according to Nasuni's statement.

The multi-site access capable also simplifies access for workers who must travel to other office locations yet still have the same capabilities as at their regular office.

"Workers who move from office to office can now ensure that they have fast access to local data without having to store it on their hard drive or to set up a VPN that spans an ocean to link up with a file server," the statement said.

"The combination of two new technologies -- one, a file system that consolidates data from multiple locations into a single snapshot stream, and, two, an encryption scheme that secures all data on customers’ premises ... unlocks the full potential of file-level snapshots to global organizations," Andres Rodriguez, Nasuni's CEO, said in a statement.

Stuart J. Johnston is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @stuartj1000.

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